Antebellum
by skitskitpotter
Summary: Sherlock Holmes has had a quiet requiem. His last days on the earth are spent in a harmless lie that will slay one man and break another. It has taken him a lot to understand that suicide need not lead to death to kill, because tomorrow is the day Sherlock Holmes jumps, and when he opens his eyes again, he will be looking out on a world without John Watson.


It is the silence before the hammer fall.

It has been a series of strange, soft machinations, of small ripples resonating into waves, of quivers and twists and motions.

Sometimes, there are words, numbers, that spatter like blood across the pages of the mind. There are faces and locations and events and times, stitched together like veins, that write themselves onto the brain in slashes and impalements, that play like mercuric music inscribed on rose-stained parchment, that break like the strings of a violin, that fall like all men are doomed to.

And now, I am going to die.

It has been a quiet requiem, played by no more than two instrumentalists. A subtle dirge at a pianissimo, written in D minor. It is too quiet for its audience to hear. He is a small man, blond, calloused hands softened by well-washed skin. He is a man of morals, of compassion, of nobility, and he is deaf. The tears of the violins waltz on the floor of the ballroom of unreceptive ears.

I have wondered whether ignorance truly is bliss. There he sits, his fingers clicking across the keyboard of his laptop, in the eye of the storm raging around him. He is unchanged. He is happy, and he is happy because he does not know. But if the melody could crescendo, if I could tear against the strings like murder… if he could know.

"Sherlock?"

The bow flies off the strings, conducted into silence by the introduction of a new voice. The lights in the dim concert hall flicker out, the stage falls away, and suddenly before me is John Watson. I have difficulty understanding why he feels as though he is millions of miles away when he cannot be sitting more than a foot from me. "Are you alright, you've been standing there for awhile." He pauses in what he's been doing to look at me. His eyes are the same color they've always been, that soft pale blue. Somehow, they always seem to be smiling, even when the rest of his face isn't.

"I'm thinking," I snap, but I can't seem to put much force behind what I say. He rolls his eyes and goes back to his laptop. I watch his hands as he types. Just watch them. Nothing more. I wonder how they will look covering a tearstained face, reaching out to brush the cold letters engraved on a stark headstone, trembling with the strength of feelings I dare not allow to worm beneath my chest.

Suddenly, I find that I no longer want to be alone in my head. I step back to look at what he's doing. "What is that?" I grumble, pointing to the screen.

"Done thinking?" he asks, fixing me with a reproachful frown. But his eyes are still grinning.

"Yes," I say. I'm taken aback by how soft my voice sounds as my lips twist to match that omnipresent expression in his gaze.

He furrows his brow in confusion for a brief moment before shrugging and saying, "Blog. You've seen it before."

"Yes." I realize how strangely I'm acting, and I quickly add, "Of course I have. I think it's fairly obvious that I see many things in a day's time."

Yes, many things. Threads of spider's silk, rivers of blood, shards of broken men, guns and rooftops and death.

He is blind, too. Blind and deaf.

"And I think… you are a prig." He tries not to smile, but the humor works its way across his face anyway, and when he meets my eyes, he chuckles quietly. I find that I cannot return his laughter; the sound is strangled in my throat.

The seconds of the day are slowed, matching the ginger rhythm of the sobbing of violins. The rain-gray shroud tied around my shoulders grows heavier with each quiet tick of the clock. I will each moment longer, but time waits for no man. Not even one who is to become a monster.

Throughout the day, I don't leave his side. I wonder why it is that the whipping pain of the minor chords is lessened when I'm near him, and why it returns when he is no longer within sight. I consider that perhaps men themselves can be stitched together like veins, but the instruments screech when I think of what happens when seams snap. My thoughts only allow themselves to know that his proximity is comforting, and that there is no logic that will pull me away.

I find myself watching him whenever I can, studying him as if he were a corpse surrounded by yellow tape lying on the concrete. Somehow, he seems new, as though we only met this morning, in a lab in St. Bart's. Strange, how the place where we began is the selfsame place from which we shall say goodbye. Ironic.

It's nearing midday now. I'm standing at the window in the living room, looking out onto the springtime street. With the day in full swing, men and women are strolling calmly around, clothed conservatively in London style. It should be winter. There should be heaps of snow on the ground, weighing down the eaves of cold homes. There should be a brisk wind blowing across empty lanes, moaning in its lonely way to match the dissonant chords I bow with the spider.

"As per our agreement, you're eating today."

I jump slightly at the sound of the voice that interrupts my morbid dance. I meet his eyes in the glass first before I turn around to face him. "If I must."

"What do you want?" He perches on the edge of the couch, folds his arms amiably.

"Just bread," I say quietly.

He sighs. "Not going to be enough if you plan on going another five days after this."

"Fine. Soup."

"You'll have both," he decides. He looks at me sternly, as if expecting a retort.

The very thought of forcing something down my throat right now is enough to make me nauseous, although it's been five days since I've last had something in my stomach. I have never detested the idea of sustenance more. But my only response is, "Fine."

Observing him through the window again, I see his brow twitch in surprise, his lips pull into a frown. The uncomfortable constricting feeling in my chest coaxes me to drop my gaze. "Alright," is all he says.

For himself, he makes a plate of eggs. He eats them a lot, I notice, and I wonder if perhaps this is his favorite lunch. When I realize I've never asked about that – about anything like that – the tight feeling in my chest grips tighter, and I hear a decrescendo in the duet. I force my arms to bow sharper, faster, but then I am only more aware of the growing dissent between the opposing notes.

"Lestrade called yesterday. He's still holding up for us." He glances at me, fork poised in one hand. "You really ought to thank him, you know. When this all blows over."

A loud, sudden crack of music, and I stiffen. Although I recover myself quickly, I know he sees me. "You don't have to worry about it now, though. I know you're…" He trails off, takes a sudden very strong interest in his plate.

Now. I don't have to worry about it now. But time will wheel forward in its arching circles, and now will end, and it won't be long.

"Um, I was reading online…" I glance up at him. "They're playing Barber at the Royal Albert Hall in a couple of weeks. Do you want to go?"

I don't believe I shall ever understand how he always knows exactly what to say and how to say it. It is as if compassion and comfort are his nature, and their expression is his talent. He is a saint, and I do not know why, but he has chosen to be my saint.

Even as the opening chords of the adagio* come crashing upon my ears, I find that I am smiling softly, saying, "That would be far from averse."

"So, in other words, 'Yes, John, that sounds brilliant, thank you for your thoughtful suggestion,'" he says with an almost wistful sigh.

I will never see that concert.

The sun is sinking now, slowly, quietly, as if to avoid interrupting the duet. The sound is becoming painful as the soft minor sighs of the adagio on repeat are perverted into dissonance. Yet I cling to the melody for dear life, as if it is a sturdy branch and I am caught in some irreversible white-water current that will sweep me down and away if I let go. But the current itself is a sound – the whistling of wind that tends to occur in those stark, gray high places drawn in jagged dashes and firm lines.

"Have you been doing something with the milk?"

The ground comes rushing back up with the reintroduction of that familiar voice. He's grimacing at the sight of the remains I keep in the refrigerator.

"No. Why?" I ask, dropping the curtain clutched in my hand.

"We're out again." He straightens up and pushes the fridge door closed with a sense that seems to be approaching relief. "Mrs. Hudson said she was baking tonight."

"So?"

"So, I'm going to do the gracious thing and get her ingredients," he says with a pointed look at me.

I watch as he picks up his jacket from next to the door to the apartment, feeling my breath quicken. "Is milk really so important?" I ask quickly.

He glances at me as he does his buttons. "Yes, it is. Not that you would know," he adds in an undertone.

"I simply don't understand why it's necessary to bustle out after it like it's some precious resource." My words are tripping over one another in their rush to get out, to keep him right here where I can see him, savor him.

He gives me a bizarre look, his brow knitted in confusion. "Sherlock, it's grocery shopping. You've never made a fuss over it before."

My heart is pounding now, in a shouting match against the chords bowing at my ears. "I'm not making a fuss, it's only an observation. Do you really have to go so immediately?" I'm speaking offhandedly, as if I'm doing nothing more than making a mockery of his pedestrianism, but that doesn't stop me from having to gulp down saliva once I've completed my thought.

He heaves a sigh, turns the doorknob, and with a shriek of music, there is a moment I can see only his back. Then, he pauses, twists around to face me. His midday eyes gently cue back the melody. When he speaks, he speaks plainly, but the slight tilt of his head to the side communicates a meaning far beyond his words. "Is there a reason I shouldn't be going?"

Yes. "No." I turn back to the window, brush the curtains aside so that I can see the street, now dyed a soft shade of scarlet.

He's quiet for a moment. "Actually, though, it's Monday, hmm? They close at five on Mondays."

I'm suddenly aware that I've been clenching my fists, as I feel my now-stiff fingers straighten themselves out. "Oh?"

"Mm. Shame, she seemed awfully keen." Guilt has a way of writing itself onto his face, and I can see the pencil scribbling on its canvas in doctor's shorthand.

I find a long breath sighing out past my lips, a sag relaxing my shoulders.

He cooks, eats. I drink. More than I usually do. He doesn't seem to notice, even though I have trouble balancing on my feet after my second glass.

I'm at the window again. Night has fully set, the sun long down, stars bleeding white against the inky black sky. It's beautiful, really, fantastically reminiscent of those leaping chords, and yet somehow the constellations form skulls and the violins play a requiem.

"Something going on with the street?"

The moon's silver colors my hands pale, skeletal, as I turn to him. He's on his laptop again, checking e-mails, perhaps. He grins pleasantly at me. "You're very interested in that window today."

_Tick, tock, tick, tock._ Moonlight, stars, nighttime, and the clock is screaming because it won't be ticking for much longer. Time is fading. Dying. "No."

His fingers go still on the keyboard. His head tilts again, but his gaze is still fixed on the screen. "It's strange not to hear you talking all day. You usually go on forever when you're on a case."

A case. No, this isn't a case anymore. It's a game that I'm sick of playing. It's a round of Russian roulette with a fully loaded pistol. "Do I?" I ask, although I'm well aware that he's right.

"Yes, and I have to put up with it."

"Oh." I know I should add something, get in a quip or a snap, but nothing comes to mind. Perhaps it's the alcohol that brings with it that thick London fog.

He looks at me finally, the soft sky in his eyes a scrutiny. "You know," he says. Tender. I can only think to describe his voice as tender. "It's alright, if there's ever anything you need." He shifts slightly, so he's facing me head on. "It's just that you've been tired, lately. I know I'm not that bright, but if you tell me what to do, I can still help out. After all, you can't run on nothing. Isn't that some physics thing?" He smiles.

Never have I had the desire to… _touch _someone before. The concept has always seemed inane, useless – a hollow conduit of sentiment, a meaningless expression of some undefined feeling. Perhaps I misunderstand the nature of emotion, but it seems a transcendent thing, detracted from by the pedestrian human yearning for physical contact. Yet never have I wanted anything more intensely than to take him into my arms right now, to share my warmth with his, to inhale his scent and run my fingers through his hair.

Even as I think this, my gaze falls across an apple resting on the kitchen table, and the strings snap with the violence of the bow. All four of them, straight in a row, _twang-twang-twang-twang_. The song has ended. There is no melody left to soften the fall. There is no melody left at all. There is only the quiet that holds my arms stiffly at my sides, unable to melt into him. The silence before the hammer fall.

"Yes." It is so hard for me to return his smile. My face – my life – feels like it is shattering. "That is… some physics thing."

He laughs softly, an oblivious chime of bells, and leans over to close the laptop. "Got that one, didn't I?" He stands up and stretches. "God, it's late. I didn't even notice," he muses as he glances at the screaming clock. Certainly, he didn't notice.

My attention remains on the back of his head. I blink when he returns to me. "Anything you need?"

I shake my head. "No."

He frowns a little and seems about to say something, but then it's as if he changes his mind. Shrugging slightly, he says, "If you're sure. I guess I'm going to sleep." He tosses me an expectant look, as if waiting for me to ask him for something, but I'm unresponsive. "Don't stay up too long."

I nod vaguely. He reaches over to turn out the kitchen light. Though the room fades to black, it still seems as though there is a soft flame arraigned about his shoulders, hanging down to his feet like a radiant cloak. Luminous. "Good night, Sherlock."

Tomorrow is the day I die.

"Good night, John."

_Goodbye._

_* _The music Sherlock is referring to is the Adagio for Strings (what I call the "Double Suicide Song") by Samuel Barber, which can be found here: watch?v=izQsgE0L450

This is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard; it's _outright_ sad. There isn't much passion, much fire, much violence; it feels defeated, like the world is ending and nothing can be done about it. The fact that Sherlock says the song is "crashing" upon his ears is a perversion of the gentleness of the first chords.


End file.
